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In this remarkable blend of memoir and criticism, James Wood, the noted contributor to the New Yorker, has written a master class on the connections between fiction and life. He argues that of all the arts, fiction has a unique ability to describe the shape of our lives and to rescue the texture of those lives from death and historical oblivion. The act of reading is understood here as the most sacred and personal of activities, and there are brilliant discussions of individual works--among others, Chekhov's story "The Kiss," The Emigrants, by W. G. Sebald, and The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald. Wood reveals his own intimate relationship with the written word: we see the development of a boy from the provinces growing up in a charged Christian environment, the secret joy of his childhood reading, the links he draws between reading and blasphemy, or between literature and music. The final section discusses fiction in the context of exile and homelessness. More than a tightly argued little book by a man commonly regarded as our finest living critic, The Nearest Thing to Life is an exhilarating personal account that reflects on, and embodies, the fruitful conspiracy between reader and writer (and critic), and asks us to reconsider everything that is at stake when we read and write fiction.

Orit Rozin focuses on the construction of citizenship in Israel during the state's first decade, revealing the historical circumstances and the pressures that limited the freedoms of Israeli citizens and, as well as showing the capacity of the bureaucracy for flexibility and of the populace for protest against unjust and humiliating measures.

Evocative readings of the Torah through the lens of transgender experience, exploring the ways trans perspectives can enrich our understanding of religious texts, traditions, and God

The story of the greatest prewar Jewish library in Europe

A study of place and creative inspiration

The first comprehensive biography of America's great mid-century impresario

An illuminating anthology that traces the trajectory of Jewish thought in twentieth-century France

A passionate and provocative assessment of the decline of performing arts institutions in the United States and how to save them

A critical assessment of Jewishness in Woody Allen's films and plays

An astonishing analysis of Jewish mother-daughter relations before, during, and after the Shoah as described in daughters' memoirs

An enlightening look at a unique and remarkable Jewish community

Now available in English, a provocative new biography of the founder of Hasidism

The first full-length presentation of Jewish life, history, and culture in California from the Gold Rush to the twenty-first century

A remarkable, in-depth study of Jewish history, culture, and memory in a historic and contemporary German city

Rich ethnographies of Jewish supplementary schools drawn from every region in the U.S.

A much-anticipated sociological analysis of gender components in contemporary American Jewish life based on the most recent population data

A fascinating analysis of the story of Eve, using modern poetry in conversation with biblical texts and rabbinic rewritings to reveal new layers of meaning

Eleven essays on the life and thought of the Jewish philosopher and theologian Franz Rosenzweig.

Following the Balfour Declaration and the British conquest of Palestine (1917-1918), the small Jewish community that lived there wanted to establish an elected assembly as its representative body. The issue that hindered this aim was whether women would be part of it. A group of feminist Zionist women from all over the country created a political p

A fresh look at Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine under the British Mandate

In the first book to investigate the cultural contributions of the banker Eduard Todesco, the steel tycoon Karl Wittgenstein and many others, Shapira reconsiders theories identifying the crisis of Jewish assimilation as a primary creative stimulus for the Jewish contribution to Viennese modernism.

In her reading of Hebrew autobiography, Tamar Hess identifies the textual presence and function of the collective and its interplay with the Israeli self. A systematic review of contemporary Hebrew autobiography, this study raises fundamental questions essential to the debates about identity at the heart of Israeli culture today.

The first history of the eight Jewish men and women who have served or who currently serve as justices of the Supreme Court.

Illustrates the complex and diverse ways that Jews in the United States and Israel are reshaping dating, marriage, and family life - with some surprising consequences

Sheds new light on the views and attitudes of Latin American writers during the Nazi era

A data-based analysis of social life and social problems in contemporary Israel that draws a vivid portrait of a dynamic and rapidly changing society

Essays in honor of the scholarly work and institutional leadership of Jehuda Reinharz, focusing on the role of the individual in history